Thursday, April 23, 2015

A Chirping Smoke Alarm

I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the sound
of chirping. No, it was not a bird. It was my #%^@ smoke alarm telling me that
it was time to change the battery. Grrrrr! Is there any worse sound in all the
world? I asked myself.

I turned on the light, climbed up on a step ladder and
yanked the alarm from the ceiling. Then I crawled back into bed and tried to resume
my interrupted dreams.

But my question kept nagging at me. Is there any worse
sound in all the world than a smoke alarm chirping in the middle of the night
when you’re sleeping soundly?

Now, that’s a first-world question, if ever there was one. Yes,
there are lots of worse sounds. Like the sound of a child crying because she’s
hungry and you’ve nothing to give her to eat. Or even worse, the silence of a
child who is so hungry she no longer has the energy to cry. Yes, that’s worse
than the sound of a smoke alarm chirping. Or the sound of a gunshot in a
neighborhood where innocent people are too often killed by guns. How about the
sound of bombs expoding all around you while you hold your breath and pray that you will escape the next one?

These were not the thoughts of a person who was about to
drift off to sleep.

I couldn't stop thinking about all the horrible sounds that were
happening right at that moment, all over the world, while I was resting on my
pillow-top mattress, cozy-warm beneath my down comforter, snuggled between my
dog and cat. Some would be thankful for being so "blessed." But I can't go there. To say that I am blessed is to say that God decided to plant me in the United
States, in an affluent lifestyle, with more material stuff than I know what to
do with. And if God decided to do that for me, then God chose not to do that for
millions of other people. The whole blessed thing doesn't work for me. I’m not blessed. I'm just
incredibly lucky.

And why me? Why have I been so lucky while other people in this
world have been so unlucky? Why have I been lucky enough to wake up in the
middle of the night cursing a chirping smoke alarm?

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About Me

Nancy is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She serves at Ascension Lutheran Church in Towson, Maryland. Nancy grew up in Hamilton, Ohio, and then served time at Bowling Green State University, before moving on to Trinity Seminary in Columbus. Starting out in North Dakota, she then returned to Ohio and served churches there before landing in North Carolina, where she served at two different congregations in Charlotte. She was also on the bishop's staff and earned a PhD from Pitt during her spare time in the area of religion and education. She considers herself an educator who happens to be a pastor and it makes a difference in how she does ministry. She is a divorce survivor, and the mother of two artsy-fartsy children who abandoned her when they became adults. Now she shares a home with Father Guido Sarducci, her tuxedo cat.